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Identity theft doesn't just happen when you're at home. In fact, you may be even more vulnerable to it while traveling because you're carrying your valuable personal information around with you in unfamiliar and distracting environments. So, how do you keep your identity safe while you're on the road?
Don't perform financial transactions over public Wi-Fi
Whether you pay for access or not, public Wi-Fi networks are not secure. It's tempting to log on in airports, hotels and airplanes when you want to kill some time, check your e-mail or make sure you have enough money in your bank account to pay for the rest of your trip.
Don't do it. Criminals can use a technique called Wi-Fi sniffing to intercept data transmitted insecurely over a wireless network, and programs that facilitate Wi-Fi sniffing are readily available online. Even accessing your Facebook account could be a bad idea. If someone hijacks your account, they could send embarrassing messages to your friends, post inappropriate status updates and do other things that might damage your reputation. Smartphone users can protect themselves by using their carrier's secure 3G or 4G service. Otherwise, handle any sensitive online business on your secure home network before you leave town.
Use a different computer exclusively for travel
Laptops and netbooks are so cheap these days that you might be able to afford more than one. If you travel enough to make such a purchase worthwhile, get a new computer that you will use exclusively for travel. Since it's not possible to completely erase data from a computer, strictly limit the amount of sensitive data that goes onto your travel computer. If it's lost or stolen, you won't have as big of a problem as if you had lost your main laptop with all your tax returns on it.
Clean out your wallet
Pare down the contents of your wallet to only the essential items you'll need on your trip. If your wallet is lost or stolen while you're traveling, it will be easier to clean up the mess if you know exactly what your wallet contained and if it was only a few items. You'll need your driver's licence or other ID, two different credit cards, some cash and that's about it. Leave your debit card at home if at all possible. Credit cards offer superior theft protection. You also shouldn't need your health insurance card, numerous credit cards or any checks. You certainly shouldn't bring your Social Insurance Number card with you.
Use a money belt
A wallet isn't that hard for a pickpocket to snatch, but a money belt that's worn under your clothes and against your body is considerably more difficult to grab. As long as you avoid getting into your money belt in public, a potential thief won't know where to look for it, and you'd likely feel it moving against your body if a pickpocket did manage to find it. Not all money belts are worn around the waist. Some can be worn around the leg or around the neck. Get one that feels comfortable and secure.
Put home mail deliveries on hold
Nothing says "we're not home" like a pile of newspapers in the driveway. And while you may not care if someone steals your newspaper while you're gone, you will care if they steal a package you ordered or anything out of your mailbox. You also don't want to signal that there's no one inside your home - if someone can steal your identity out of your mailbox, think of the damage they can do with all the documents that are probably lying around your house. You can contact Canada Post to place a hold on postal deliveries for a fee, and many newspapers will also let you put your subscription on hold through their websites. Ideally you could also have a neighbour, friend or relative check your house once or twice a day for any flyers that get hung on your front door or left on your doorstep.
Be cautious
No one wants to spend his or her entire vacation looking over his or her shoulder, and you don't have to be suspicious of everyone you meet. At the same time, you shouldn't be too trusting around strangers. Don't ask someone at the airport to watch your bag while you run to the restroom (that's a bad idea anyway, given airport security procedures). Make sure no one is trying to observe what you're doing on your laptop or smartphone, be careful what you reveal in cellphone conversations in public places and be aware that strangers asking for help are sometimes trying to distract you while an associate picks your pocket.
The bottom line
Don't put yourself at high risk of identity theft when you travel. Identity theft is not a crime you can entirely prevent, but you can take basic precautions to minimize your risk of becoming a target.


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My boss shared this Far Side cartoon with me many years ago and it makes me laugh every time I see it!
Today starts a new monthly challenge on the JFF Rubber Stamps blog and the theme is Halloween!
I needed a little creativity jump start and used the September 2018 card sketch from the card sketch challenge in the Club Scrap Chat group on Facebook.
I used two different Halloween stamps from JFF Stamps to create my design. I randomly stamped the Tiny Black Kat onto a strip of Club Scrap black print card stock with Versamark ink and heat embossed with copper foil embossing powder.
My Tim Holtz stamping platform came in handy again with the Crooked Old Tree silhouette stamp and Black Soot Distress Oxide ink. I always avoided silhouette or detailed stamps until I started using the platform. I had to stamp both images a few times to get a full imprint, but they turned out perfect! I added some googly eyes to the tree and some puffy sticker letters for my sentiment.
Click HERE for more inspiration from the JFF Design Team and link up your Halloween creation for a chance to win a gift certificate to shop at JFF Stamps! I'll look for you in the gallery!
The Artistic Stamper Creative Team Blog: October's Creative Team Challenge Inktober
Love to Scrap Challenge Blog #114 Fall Back
Love to Craft Challenge Blog #27 October Anything Goes
Hiding in My Craftroom #372 Freestyle!

subset: commoncrawl


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I have a private server running Tekkit and I'm finding that some (perhaps all) of my energy collectors are running 24x7, even when nobody else is logged on (supposing I log off in the evening, when I check on it in the morning I can find half a stack or so of dark matter waiting for me in a chest).
Are energy collectors supposted to work even when nobody is logged onto the server? Its nice having all of these resources, but I can't help but wonder if this is a bug.
My friend and I are the only people whitelisted on the server and I've checked the logs so I know that nobody else is logged on. Also neither of us have placed any world anchors or anything like that. The collectors are close to the spawn, I'm not sure if that makes any difference or not.


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This post was originally published on August 29, 2010.
Given the fact that we are now four years closer, I thought it might be fun to have another look at "the birth of Jazz."
Hope to be able to re-post it again three years from now!
© -
Steven Cerra, copyright protected; all rights reserved.
Given the fact that we are now four years closer, I thought it might be fun to have another look at "the birth of Jazz."
Hope to be able to re-post it again three years from now!
© -
God willin' and the creek don't rise, in less than seven [7] years, Jazz recordings will be celebrating their 100th anniversary.
Of course, we are hopeful that we will still be here on
February 26, 2017 to commemorate the making of these first Jazz recordings, but we are also mindful of the admonition in the following Irish Proverb: "If you want to make God laugh, tell him your plans."
February 26, 1917, The Original Dixieland Jazz Band recorded Livery Stable Blues and Dixie Jass Band One-Step. Available for sale on March 17, 1917 at a cost of 75 cents, Victor Recording #18255 was the first Jazz record ever issued.
In anticipation of this eventful day, and as a means of spending some time musing about the early years of the music, the editorial staff at JazzProfiles has put together the following audio-video tribute to the creators of Early Jazz.
The soundtrack is After You've Gone played by alto saxophonists Charlie Mariano – Jerry Dodgion and their sextet that includes Victor Feldman on vibes, Jimmy Rowles on piano, bassist Monty Budwig and drummer Shelly Manne.
The track is from their Beauties of 1918 [World Pacific WP 1245] which is made up of a collection of tunes that were popular in and around the Unites States' entry and involvement in the First World War [1917-1918].
Checkout the improvised-in-unison chorus that begins at and which is used to close out the tune instead of a restatement of the melody.
The following thoughts by writer-musician Richard Sudhalter may help put Jazz from this early period in its history into a broader context:
"The 'Great War' left a new generation of disillusioned, worldly-wise Americans, determined to enjoy the pleasures of youth, and damn the consequences.
As John F. Carter's oft-quoted declaration in the September 1920 Atlantic Monthly so eloquently put it:
The older generation had certainly pretty-well ruined this world before passing it on to us. They gave us this thing; knocked to pieces, leaky, red-hot, threatening to blow-up; and then they are surprised that we don't accept it with the same attitude of pretty, decorous enthusiasm with which they received it, 'way back in the eighties.
What better vehicle to express the indignation and sense of independence those words implied than five musical roughnecks [The Original Dixieland Jazz Band] from down south, making such a racket that Mom and Pop, and just about everyone else over the age of twenty-five, retreated in horror and dismay? Rock and roll, 1918 style."
The above quotation [pp.18-19] is taken from Mr. Sudhalter's Lost Chords: White Musicians and Their Contributions to Jazz 1915 – 1945 [
: Oxford University Press, 1999]. New York
Much like Early Jazz, because of its emphasis on the contributions of White musicians, Lost Chords itself caused quite a bit of controversy when it was first published, so much so that Mr. Sudhalter wrote a defense of it which was posted on the Challenge Records website when that Dutch-based record company released a two-CD companion set to the book in 2000.
Unfortunately, Mr. Sudhalter's astute and quite brilliant writings on the subject of Jazz will no longer be forthcoming as he passed away in 2008.
The editorial staff at JazzProfiles thought it would make its own 'contribution' to his memory and especially to Lost Chords' broadening edification about some of the makers of Early Jazz by offering its readers the opportunity to read the piece he wrote for the Challenge Records website.
© -Richard Sudhalter/Challenge Records, copyright protected; all rights reserved.
Talkback – And A Modest Proposal
By Richard Sudhalter
"Saxophonist-composer Bill Kirchner, a most perceptive fellow, put it perfectly: "this book is going to be a Rorschach test," he said, "but not for you. The ways in which people respond to it will tell you a lot about themselves."
How right he was. The book, of course, was LOST CHORDS, my 870-page chronicle of the contributions made by white musicians to pre-bop jazz. The nine months it's been on the market have brought a wide range of response, from thoughtful analysis to near-apoplectic vilification. Not that the latter came as any surprise. In these self-consciously compensatory times, anyone suggesting (in public, anyway) that this great music was born of anything besides the black experience is asking for trouble. Too many folks have invested too heavily in the dogma of exclusively black creationism to allow anything as awkward as mere fact to rock their neatly-rigged yachts.
Cushioning and empowering them is the current rage for moral and cultural relativism, reflexive male-bashing, historical revisionism, presentism (judging yesterday by today's notions and precepts), outcome-justified social engineering, indiscriminate demonization of white European traditions, and countless other perversions of the multiculturalist ideal.
Scholar-pedagogue Gerald Early summed it up in one review of LOST CHORDS: "It is difficult, in most scholarly circles, to write about American whites as whites these days unless one is being very critical of them." That's been the pattern lately in jazz perception here in the pre-millennial
: the notion of white musicians as anything but brigands and exploiters, or feckless popularizers, is rigorously abjured. USA
LOST CHORDS has indeed brought out the telltale ink blots: it's shown some commentators to be fair-minded, intellectually upright, attempting in good faith - even when they disagreed with some of the book's assertions - to evaluate both hypothesis and execution. It's exposed others, in sometimes disheartening ways, as self-serving, self-deceiving, deeply prejudiced (in the true Latinate sense) and, above all, intellectually dishonest.
My main response to all the complaint and contumely has been to return to questions that dominated my long-ago days as a jazz reviewer for Rupert Murdoch's New York Post: what, exactly, is the responsibility of a critic? And to whom is he responsible? Everyone acknowledges the power conferred by just appearing in print (or on radio or TV); countless artists pander and flatter, court and cajole, for the sake of a feature, a two-paragraph review, even just a mention. It's an alarmingly one-sided process. Most critics (or reviewers, to accept Byron's implied distinction) enjoy a bully pulpit that's prominent, pervasive, all but unassailable. They write pretty much what they want - and that includes venting personal tastes, touting current favorites, even settling old scores. In some notorious cases they have been known to wallow in simple, mean-spirited subjectivity.
But hold: wasn't it Stanley Baldwin who declared that "power without responsibility [has been] the prerogative of the harlot throughout the ages?" Surely being a critic or reviewer, especially an influential one, suggests an obligation to ask disinterested questions: "What is this artist (writer, composer, player) trying to achieve?" "Through what means?" "How skilled is he, how successful in executing his conception?" "Who is the target audience, and how effectively did the artistic product reach that audience?" "Am I being honest, informative and fair in representing what's been done here?" Significantly and justly absent from such a formulation is, "Did I, personally, like him or her?" "Do I like this (musical, literary, visual) style?" Do I, personally, find the conception or methods appealing?" "Is any of this in keeping with my own artistic (or political, or historical) beliefs and practices?"
The critical process remains skewed, one-sided, fortressed within the utter futility of any attempt to rebut a writer's pronouncements. Sure, there are letters-to-the-editor columns. But 'fess up, now: who among us can recall seeing such a letter (when it appeared at all) that didn't sound like whining, complaint, or plain olf sour grapes? It might be interesting and productive to grant performers, composers, authors a real forum of their own, allowing them to question, weigh, challenge the judgments of those who sit in judgment of them. To ask the unasked questions ~ even, where appropriate, to examine the credentials of those who occupy the bully pulpit.
Daniel Jonah Goldhagen got that opportunity in late 1996, after his HITLER'S WILLING EXECUTIONERS touched off a worldwide firestorm of soul-searching and wild accusation. It came courtesy of The New Republic, which commissioned him to write an article that appeared under the headline, "Motives, Causes and Alibis: A Reply to My Critics" (
TNR, 12/23/96). In an admirably restrained, even genial manner, Goldhagen dealt with doubters, detractors, and defamers alike, taking on issues of fact and interpretation. Exhorting one and all to define and justify their arguments about what was, after all, a deeply resonant subject.
Why, I thought, isn't this kind of platform universally available? And then, as if in answer to a prayer, along came the internet. In its very immediacy, ubiquitousness, and interactive nature, it seems an ideal medium, a tool, for use in dismantling the barricades separating critic from criticized. A chat room, perhaps, compulsorily attended one day a week by the designated critic?
Of course such a prospect confers rules and responsibilities of its own: no ad hominem (or feminam) stuff. No finger-pointing or name-calling. Just cogent, necessarily substantive questions, and honest answers. By way of illustration, a letter from one reader about my recent New York Times piece on writing jazz fiction complained that "Mr. Sudhalter's message seems clear: don't try to write about jazz unless you're a jazz musician... Are jazz musicians so unique (sic) that they fall into another category, too far beyond 'civilian' experience for a writer to reach?"
It might have been rewarding to open a dialogue with this correspondent by saying, Yes, sir, that's exactly my message. I believe that music, unlike police work or politics (the two other fields cited by the letter-writer), totally defines its surroundings and practitioners. Jazz musicians are their music. Absent that, they're just people making a living, eating meals, paying bills — no different from cops or politicos. But that's just the point: the music can't be subtracted: it's the defining essence, which sets musicians apart, makes them special and ultimately a little mysterious. Makes their various complexes and misbehaviors interesting to writers, chroniclers, fans.
Would British writer Geoff Dyer, for example, have found Bud Powell, Charles Mingus, Art Pepper, and the other walking pathologies celebrated in his BUT BEAUTIFUL (Farrar, Straus, 1996) so fascinating had it not been for the music they made? Subtract the music and you have just another chronicle of aberrant thought and behavior. In a review of his book, I wondered whether Dyer would have been similarly drawn to musicians such as Henry Allen, Dizzy Gillespie, and Red Norvo, no less brilliant, who seem to have led balanced, eminently non-neurotic lives.
It all comes back, finally, to a self-evident fact: any writer, regardless how adept, who doesn't understand music will have a tough time writing convincingly about it, either as a critic or as a novelist. Such attempts invariably wind up, as Jason Epstein put it some years ago in The New Yorker, "as though someone who had never thought of holding a brush and had never considered the problems of color and volume had attempted a life of Cezanne."
Particularly relevant to the controversy surrounding LOST CHORDS is a note in which Goldhagen alludes to negative comments by Man openly hostile reporter who argued with me about my book even while admitting that he had read only a small portion of it." One of the radio interviews I've done since LOST CHORDS appeared was with a jazz "expert" who rather cavalierly questioned the very need for a book glorifying white musicians. Of course, he added, he hadn't read it - but "people," unidentified, had told him what it was "about" — therefore presumably qualifying him to pass judgment.
Then, too, buried on a back page of the Sunday New York Times Book Review, was a critique by New Orleans-based writer Jason Berry. Dealing mostly with the book's introduction, and dipping only fleetingly into the text, the writer squandered precious column inches on such peripheral issues as Albert Murray's 1976 book STOMPING THE BLUES, the role of the long-ago Fisk Jubilee Singers in popularizing spirituals, the character of the legendary New Orleans figure Buddy Bolden.
"Sudhalter is right to assert a role for white musicians in jazz history," Mr.
declared in his final paragraph. "If only he had used more light and less heat to make his case." Heat? Search as I might, I could locate none, and none of the "strained polemic" Mr. Berry claimed to find. How sweet it might have been to counter such stuff on the spot. Strained polemic? Where, Jason? How? Show me. More heat than light, in a volume that scrupulously maintains a detached, even Olympian, tone? Chapter and verse, Mr. Berry, please. Berry
And what, too, of the British writer who decried the book's "dense, lifeless prose, dotted through with sidetracks, points of barely relevant detail, and a great deal of repetition and deviation?" Let's place the reviewer (whose own book, launched by the same publisher and editor as mine, was not without its clunky passages) in the dock, having to support his every adjective.
Like Pip, in the still unsurpassed 1948 movie version of GREAT EXPECTATIONS, parting the drapes of Miss Havisham's musty old room to let glorious light stream in, let's bring the jazz panjandrums out from behind their curtains and screens, invulnerable no longer - held to account at last for their every utterance.
LOST CHORDS has just gone into a second printing. Retrieval Records, a branch of Challenge, has issued a two-CD companion set, supplying 49 vintage cuts in illustration of music and musicians discussed in the text. Here are Bix and Tram, Bud Freeman and Adrian Rollini, Joe Venuti and Eddie Lang, Red Nichols and Miff Mole — even such relatively obscure figures as Boyce Brown and Jack Purvis, in sometimes brilliant performances.
Never mind the racial rhetoric or quasi-authoritative edicts from "authorities" who'd have trouble finding B-flat if they stumbled across it in the dark. The music speaks eloquently for itself, calling upon those who would judge it and its players to establish criteria and credentials for doing so - or forever hold their tongues.
The defense rests - for now."
In addition to Sudhalter's marvelous book, for those who wish to read more widely on the subject of the beginnings of Jazz, Gunther Schuller's Early Jazz: Its Roots and Musical Development [New York: Oxford University Press, 1968] is highly recommended.
Here are three paragraphs from the Preface which will serve as an introduction to the work and as a conclusion to this feature:
"Although there is no dearth of books on jazz, very few of them have attempted to deal with the music itself in anything more than general descriptive or impressionistic terms. The majority of books have concentrated on the legendry of jazz, and over the years a body of writing has accumulated which is little more than an amalgam of well-meaning amateur criticism and fascinated opinion. That this was allowed to pass for scholarship and serious analysis is attributable not only to the humble, socially "unacceptable" origin of jazz, but also to the widely held notion that a music improvised by self-taught, often musically illiterate musicians did not warrant genuine musicological research. Despite the fact that many "serious" composers and performers had indicated their high regard for jazz as early as the 1920$, the academic credentials of jazz were hardly sufficient to produce a serious interest in the analysis of its techniques and actual musical content. …
This history, the first of two volumes, attempts among other things to fill some of those gaps, to explore, as it were, the foothills as well as the peaks of jazz. In fact, this volume has been written on the assumption that virtually every record made, from the advent of jazz recordings through the early 1930$, has been listened to, analyzed, and if necessary discussed. A true assessment of an artist (or a particular musical development) cannot be made without reference to the totality of his work and its relation to his contemporaries. An analysis of Beethoven's Eroica or Armstrong's West End Blues without reference to musical history or the development of musical style could yield a certain amount of factual information, but a full evaluation would obviously be impossible without considering the authors' total oeuvre and that of their immediate predecessors, contemporaries, and successors. The work of Johnny Dodds, for example, cannot be properly assessed without comparative listening to at least Sidney Bechet or Jimmy Noone. Similarly, jazz historians who write about the Original Dixieland Jazz Band without having listened to James Reese Europe or Earl Fuller recordings can hardly arrive at a reasonable evaluation of the ODJB.
Another approach employed here is to concentrate on those moments, those performances, and those musicians who in one way or another represent innovational landmarks in the development of jazz. In a sense this book is an answer in terms of specific musical detail to a series of interrelated questions: What makes jazz work? What makes jazz different from other music? Why do so many people find jazz exciting? How did it get that way? It is as if I were sitting down with a friend not as yet initiated into the mysteries of jazz, listening to records, responding to the kind of questions a musician might ask, and sharing with him the excitement and beauty of this music. Thus the book attempts to combine the objective research of the historian-musicologist with the subjectivism of an engaged listener and performer-composer. In this respect the book is directed particularly to the "classically" trained musician or composer, who may never have concerned himself with jazz and who cannot respond to the in-group jargon and glossy enthusiasm of most writing on jazz. Implicit in the perspective governing this history is the view that jazz is but one of many musical languages and cultures available to us in mid-twentieth century, and whether explicitly stating it or not, the book places jazz in that larger context."
To be continued over the next seven years and, hopefully, beyond.


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text:
Filters let you refine your search results to display issues with specific attributes.
When you execute a search query, YouTrack displays the Filters list in the sidebar. The list of filters shows the attributes that are available for issues.
Expand an attribute filter to show a list of values for the selected attribute.
For example, here's how the issues that were returned by a search query are distributed by issue type:
YouTrack even shows you how many issues in the list contain the corresponding value. For the issues in this list, one issue was updated on Monday, three issues were updated last week, 14 were updated this month, and so on. The All checkbox is selected by default. This setting means that all of the issues that were returned by the query are displayed, no matter when they were updated.
If you only want to see issues that were updated this month or last month, select This month and Last month. To apply the filters, click the link in the Show x matching issues tooltip. YouTrack limits the list to show 18 issues (14 this month and 4 last month). The search query is updated to include the selected filters.
You can select filters for other attributes, such as State, Tags, Subsystem, and Assignee to further refine the list of issues.


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"Lights out" for freedom and the achievements of industrial civilization.
Yesterday at 8:30 PM local time all around the world, demonstrators dimmed the lights of their houses and establishments for one hour as part of a global demonstration called "Earth Hour" by its originators in Sydney, Australia. Organized by the WWF (The World Wildlife Fund or World Wide Fund for Nature outside the U.S. and Canada), Earth Hour's website says:
This year, Earth Hour has been transformed into the world's first global election, between Earth and global warming.
For the first time in history, people of all ages, nationalities, race and background have the opportunity to use their light switch as their vote – Switching off your lights is a vote for Earth, or leaving them on is a vote for global warming.
But the chic marketing tag that frames this as an election between Earth and global warming is ultimately vague, meaningless, and disingenuous. It is a preposterous, context-dropping obfuscation of the WWF's real purpose, made all the more absurd because the WWF states its real purpose in the next sentence:
WWF are urging the world to VOTE EARTH and reach the target of 1 billion votes, which will be presented to world leaders at the Global Climate Change Conference in Copenhagen 2009.
This meeting will determine official government policies to take action against global warming, which will replace the Kyoto Protocol. It is the chance for the people of the world to make their voice heard.
The WWF is shrewdly counting on its demonstrators and its audience to remain in the dark about the real meaning of this demonstration by shining the spotlight on its vague anti-concept of voting for or against the Earth. Why after all, would anyone vote against the Earth? But the deeper question here is "What would that even mean?" The real alternative- the real issue that people were "voting" on yesterday- is whether or not the international community should sign a treaty requiring signatory governments to severely cap their country's emissions.
The Light of Free Market Capitalism and Industrial Civilization
Supporting an environmental treaty mandating steep reductions of carbon emissions is tantamount to advocating a demolition job of industrial civilization and all of the wonderful things it has brought us. Presently, the overwhelming majority of energy generated globally is produced from the combustion of carbon-emitting fossil fuels. To severely restrict their use with draconian regulations and taxes will mean less energy. Less energy will mean less productivity. Less productivity will mean less value for us all. By value, I mean all the things that lengthen and improve the quality of our lives. The price of energy will skyrocket, hurting businesses, dampening job growth, and inflating the cost of living.
The poorest among us, as always, will be hit the hardest. People with plenty of money to spare may not like the results, but they will be able to absorb the damage and continue to live comfortably. People who already barely make ends meet will be ruined by the rising costs of living brought on by less energy and higher energy costs. Groceries will cost more because of the increased costs of using energy to fertilize, till, plant, reap, store, transport, and distribute food. Heating and air-conditioning which are nearly universally available in first world countries might become luxuries for the wealthy. The symbolism in "Earth Hour" is quite accurate- a world without energy would be a very dark world.
Just look at these two respective maps of 1) the Earth at night as seen from space and 2) GDP intensity- how much economic activity happens within a square kilometer:
Source: Defense Meteorological Satellite Program, DOD
Source: the International Regional Science Review, 1999
Let's take a break from the politics for a second and have a moment together. Isn't what you just looked at above really, really cool(!)? Seriously, just stop reading for a minute if you haven't already and contemplate those maps. Light isn't an indication of some hideous crime against the Earth. It's an indication of great achievements for humanity! It isn't a badge of failure, but a stamp of success! Industrial civilization has shined a light on the world, and in all the places where that light is brightest, it is because the people there live the longest, most productive, most literally enlightened lives. Those lights illuminate schools, homes, and office buildings where students, families, and workers spend their time extending and improving their lives and the lives of others by creating and exchanging things of value.
Crushing The Third World's Hopes of Affluence
And how badly the rest of the world wants to step into that kind of light! Developing and former communist countries throughout the third world have a dream. If you visit the busy streets of India or the crowded, extra-legal shanty town districts surrounding the cities of poor Latin American countries, you will be dazzled and electrified by the excitement and bustle in the air. The third world has a dream and that dream is industrialization. A second Industrial Revolution is sweeping through these countries with the promises of affluence that it brought to the West the first time around! A global treaty to limit carbon emissions is a promise to shatter that dream. It is not only the lower classes of wealthy nations that will suffer from the proposed ends of the "Earth Hour" demonstrators, it is also the poor of developing countries who will continue to be left in the dark and legally forced to remain there.
Source: Defense Meteorological Satellite Program, DOD
For residents in Sydney, Paris, or New York, "Earth Hour" is a trendy protest, an occasion to socialize by candle light and swell with pride at supporting a "cause." For the residents of Haiti or Uganda, "Earth Hour" is a way of life, a prison, an endless privation that they are trying and hoping desperately to escape. Yesterday's demonstration was a slap in their face, a careless display of privileged, bourgeois ignorance. It was simultaneously, a call to forcibly restrict developing nations' economic growth and an admonition for developed nations to be more like the third world- this at a time when the third world is working so hard to be more like the developed world! How can "civilized" people be so foolish, backward, and regressive as this?
Being The Change We Want To See In The World
What I find interesting, is the sharp contrast between "Earth Hour's" methods and its ends. It's method of demonstration was for people around the world to voluntarily cooperate by modifying their own behavior to conform to their values and beliefs. But the goal of that demonstration was to persuade world governments to forcibly modify their citizens' behavior by law. The juxtaposition is ironic because the solution to their problem was contained within the demonstration itself, yet they all seemed to miss it. If we believe carbon emissions are harming the planet and that we must take action to reduce them, any one of us is welcome and free to reduce his or her own carbon footprint by taking voluntary action and having "Earth Hour" every night, instead of just once a year.
If the debate really is over and there is truly an inarguable scientific consensus that global warming is caused by human carbon emissions, then why is the use of force necessary to persuade the world to act? Shouldn't the force of their arguments be enough for environmentalists to change the world? That is the premise of a free society, which is to say, a civilized society, the premise that we must persuade each other to cooperate together voluntarily to achieve values we consider worthwhile, that we must never aggress against others to achieve our ends, whether by the force of individual coercion or the institutionalized force of legal coercion. This is the humble premise, the premise that says "I am not infallible so I will not forcibly impose my beliefs on the lives of other human beings, because if I am wrong then only I should suffer the consequences of my mistakes, not everyone else who I forcibly dragged along with me." This is the operating premise behind the Mahatma Gandhi's admonition to mankind that we must be the change we want to see in the world.
Concluding Thoughts on "Earth Hour"
"Earth Hour" was a systematic assault on the liberty of the world's people disguised as a peaceful demonstration. It casts the alternative as one between Earth and global warming, but the real alternative it proposes is between forced restriction of carbon emissions and the freedom of all human beings to flourish by using energy to improve the length and quality of their lives. If we choose the former of the two alternatives, we will harm and destroy the productive ability of poor nations and retard their development into shining, affluent societies.
A common theme of propaganda is to define a struggle as one between the light and the darkness. It is curiously revealing that these propagandists openly declare that they are on the side of darkness while their enemies are on the side of light. We should take their claim at face value and eschew the darkness that they themselves claim best exemplifies their cause.


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Dr. Richard Mouw, president of Fuller Theological Seminary of Pasadena, Calif., will deliver the inaugural address in the new "World Christian Lecture Series" at Hope College.
Mouw will present "Intellectual Hospitality: Why Christians Should Make Room for New, and even Strange, Ideas" on Monday, Oct. 27, at 4 p.m. in the Maas Center auditorium. While on campus he will also preach during the college's "The Gathering" worship service on Sunday, Oct. 26, at 8 p.m. in Dimnent Memorial Chapel.
The public is invited to both events. Admission is free.
The World Christian Lecture Series has been established to invite recognized Christian thinkers and practitioners who are leaders in their respective disciplines and areas of expertise to join with the Hope and Holland communities in exploring issues, themes and ideas that face Christians in the world. The annual fall series has been developed with the intention to feature a mix of speakers that can include Christian scholars, artists, preachers, politicians, and industry and church leaders.
Trygve Johnson, who is the Hinga-Boersma Dean of the Chapel at Hope, whose office is coordinating the series, noted that Mouw is the ideal speaker with whom to inaugurate the lectureship.
"Richard Mouw is a deep thinker whose theologically informed scholarship mirrors the rich tradition of intellectual rigor and vibrant faith that are pillars of the Hope experience," he said. "He is engaged with Christians from around the world, and will add meaningfully to our conversations at Hope as we prepare students to live their Christian faith in the world."
The World Christian Lecture Series is funded through an endowment at the college established an anonymous donor who supports Hope College's continued mission to educate students for global leadership in the context of the historic Christian faith.
West Michigan is a familiar locale for Mouw. He completed his Master of Divinity degree at Western Theological Seminary, which is adjacent to the Hope campus, and was a member of the philosophy faculty at Calvin College in Grand Rapids for 17 years.
Mouw has been president of Fuller Theological Seminary since 1993, after having previously served for four years as provost and senior vice president. He joined the Fuller faculty in September 1985 as professor of Christian philosophy and ethics following his tenure at Calvin. He has also served as a visiting professor at the Free University in Amsterdam.
Mouw has a broad record of publication. He is the author of 17 books, including "Consulting the Faithful: What Christian Intellectuals Can Learn from Popular Religion," "The Smell of Sawdust: What Evangelicals Can Learn from Their Fundamentalist Heritage," "He Shines in All That's Fair: Culture and Common Grace," "Wonderful Words of Life: Hymns in American Protestant History and Theology," "Calvinism in the Las Vegas Airport: Making Connections in Today's World" and, with co-editor Eric Jacobsen, "Traditions in Leadership: How Faith Traditions Shape the Way We Lead." His most recent book, "Praying at Burger King" (2007), offers a collection of warm, conversational reflections on faith and everyday life.
He has been an editor of the "Reformed Journal" and has served on many editorial boards, including currently "Books and Culture." He is a regular columnist on beliefnet.com, serves as a panelist in the online forum "On Faith" offered by "Newsweek" and the "Washington Post," and maintains a personal blog.
Mouw has also participated on many councils and boards, including the Commission on Accreditation for the Association of Theological Schools (as chair) and the Council on Civil Society. He currently serves on advisory boards for "Religion and Ethics Newsweekly," the International Justice Mission, and the International Center for Religion and Diplomacy.
He is a graduate of Houghton College. In addition to his Master of Divinity from Western Theological Seminary, his graduate degrees include a Master of Arts from the University of Alberta and a doctorate from the University of Chicago.
Dimnent Memorial Chapel is located at 277 College Ave., on College Avenue at 12th Street. The Maas Center is located at 264 Columbia Ave., on Columbia Avenue at 11th Street.


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Held over until next Tuesday is the Film Forum's run of Intolerance.
If you have not seen D.W. Griffith's Intolerance since film school, or film appreciation class, or years ago on public television, etc., or worse yet (or maybe better yet, as it happens) have never seen it at all, get yourself down to Manhattan's Film Forum starting tomorrow and catch it, in a stunning new restoration released by The Cohen Film Collection. It is nearly one hundred years old and I will put money down that it will be the most spectacularly vital film running theatrically in the five buroughs as of its first screening.
Why? Well, it's not just the structure: in making this ostensible "answer picture" to the (completely justified) protests pertaining to his 1915 The Birth of a Nation, Griffith conceived four tales of this movie's title theme, each set in a different age and place, and interwove them cinematically, with one of the key effects being, as Kevin Brownlow has so memorably described, a sweeping up of the viewer into four separate and equally engrossing climaxes in the film's final third. This was/is admitedly a daring storytelling gambit, and not a whole lot of conventional narrative filmmakers have tried to meet this challenge since (although in a mildly ironic coincidence, noted Griffith disapprover Quentin Tarantino has performed structural tricks that Intolerance certainly set a kind of precedent for, in both Pulp Fiction and Jackie Brown). That's the thing I absorbed pretty well on my first screening of Intolerance long ago, so it didn't knock me out this time around. Nor, for that matter, did the content, although it is quite fascinationg. The discursive "modern day" story finds Griffith wrestling with his inner Victorian to concoct a condemnation of priggish reformers. The conception of the fall of Babylon has an interesting proto-feminist component in the person of a character named "Mountain Girl." And so on. All good stuff. Pauline Kael has noted that the film contains the seeds of every kind of silent and then sound studio film that came immediately after it. And more than that: the movie has surprising scenes of nudity, quasi-nudity, and extreme violence and gore. There's a beheading or two; the effects for these are not particularly convincing, but hey, they were in there pitching. In this respect, and given the movie's still staggering scale of spectacle and set-construction (it's almost impossible to believe that Griffith conceived, produced, shot, edited, and released such an elaborate movie in a mere year after his prior one), what Kael says still goes.


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The sand is beginning to cool, slightly, but the sinking sun still slants through the gaps left between beachside residences that tower into the sky. It is dusk, and beachgoers enjoy the last few moments of the day while fishermen and fisherwomen plod along the jetty that separates the mass of Atlantic Ocean from Florida's Intracoastal Waterway.
Boca Raton is an area of immense wealth and tight, visible infrastructure. Its highly refined presence is lovely. In the 1920s, architect Addison Mizner translated his love for Spanish architecture into beautiful buildings that give the town an upscale, unique feeling. For my family and me, the best part of Boca Raton is the quiet beach, enjoying a holiday with my in-laws at their condominium.
The Intracoastal Waterway that runs alongside the ocean, separated by small portions of land, is the nesting ground for multimillion- dollar homes. These homes have manicured gardens, massive yachts and usually a Porsche or Ferrari parked on the driveway. The amount of money spent here is staggering, and at times overwhelming.
Taking a water taxi near Fort Lauderdale gives travellers a taste of what the highest of high life is like, where $75-million boats line the banks and crews of full-time gardeners dot the grounds of private homes.
Despite the beauty of Boca and the amazing opulence that surrounds it, my family and I found ourselves being drawn back to the simplicity of the sea, lingering as long as possible, and yearning for tastes of a Florida that just might exist underneath the dizzying wealth of the East Coast. We were not disappointed.
Boca Raton is located about 100 kilometres north of Miami. From there we made several worthwhile road trips while enjoying the quiet, sandy and gentle beaches that sprawl and dot the Gold (East) Coast. We were often drawn to national and state parks and nature reserves that existed almost unnoticed next to overwhelming displays of wealth.
The Gumbo Limbo Environmental Complex preserves eight hectares of land between the Intracoastal Waterway and the East Coast of Florida within a five-minute drive from Boca Raton. This protected area has a wonderful learning centre that was erected beneath a palm hammock, flanked by mangrove coastline. It is run by the City of Boca Raton and supported by volunteers with the intent to educate locals and tourists and to rehabilitate injured animals. It's a lovely area, shaded from the sun.
Ocean water is pumped straight from the sea into several tanks that are home to sea turtles, nurse sharks and other marine life. There is also a structure that leads up out of the natural canopy and gives views of the waterway.
Key Biscayne is only a short drive from Miami across a beautiful causeway. Bill Bags Cape Florida State Recreation Area is at the south of the island and is secluded and quiet. I walked through a series of wild nature trails and saw the slender roots of mangroves dipping into the saltwater while geckos and small lizards crunched dry grasses as I passed by. At the very tip of Key Biscayne is the Cape Florida Lighthouse. Before it was completed in 1825 to act as a beacon of safety, the island was a secret place where runaway slaves and Seminoles waited to escape to the British Bahamas. We rested there on the beach, boasted to be one of the top 10 in the United States, until the sun set behind us into the tree hammock.
Key Biscayne is also home to the Miami Seaquarium, where a spectacular population of dolphins, orcas, sea lions, sharks and manatees are cared for. My son's eyes burned with excitement as a dolphin leaped out of a water tank and drenched him with sea water. The quality of the marine shows was amazing and was mixed with a dose of education and conservation.
The Keys seem related to the manatee, Florida's gentle "sea cow," a huge mammal that lumbers about, slowly swimming in the swamps and ocean and waterways. It is quite an oddity, but gentle and unassuming.
The Keys also have a feeling of oddness, quirky and, well, hard to describe.
A staff member at our hotel called this "keysie," a description that really seemed to fit. Key Largo's shores are encrusted with mangroves and frequented by dolphins and manatees. There are few beaches to speak of, although the ocean views and restaurants on stilts are wonderful. The crazy mix of sea-shell shops and T-shirt shops and Payless Shoes stores and marinas was eclectic, to say the least.
We felt incredibly lucky to stay at the Kona Kai Resort, a slice of heaven in an unusual backwash of keysie surroundings. We walked through meticulously cared for, yet natural-seeming gardens and grounds into an art gallery that served as the reception area.
The owners, Joe and Ronnie Harris, spend much of their time in France while travelling other parts of the world. They collect art and house it in a unique gallery, also displaying it in the 11 quiet rooms of the resort.
The hammocks strung between giant palms seemed to reach for us, and my husband and I read and enjoyed our books while we absorbed the palpable silence. The combed sand and pristine pool enhanced the grounds. Later at the gardens, we bit into juicy star fruit picked straight from the tree. Each room and suite named after a fruit was decorated differently, making each unique. We drank a cold beer on our small patio before playing a game of tennis on lighted courts. We were in heaven.
This park is also a quiet alternative with its rangy gators and slow turtles and miles of trails that cut through pine flatwoods and cypress stands. We rented a motorboat and navigated the Loxahatchee River in search of manatees. We didn't find any, but saw several turtles sunning themselves on a log that jutted out of the swampy river.
The Loxahatchee twisted and split and turned in an incredible number of directions and we were careful to remember which way we were heading. The gleaming white cranes had a better vantage point from up above us.
For those who appreciate luxury, Florida expresses it in the abundance of multi-million-dollar homes on the Intracoastal Waterway, sports cars and movie stars, and plastic surgery. And for those who are more drawn to the state's natural side, its parks and coastline, sand dunes and mangrove swamps await.
Bring along a Lonely Planet guidebook for honest accounts of out-of-the way locations.
Don't forget your camera for gator sightings, or that always hard-to-spot manatee. Always have a fat stack of quarters to plug into the meters at beachside parking lots. They also come in handy when driving the Florida Turnpike, a much-recommended way to travel when you want to get somewhere fast. Have money ready at the toll booths.
It's best to travel in the shoulder seasons when the weather is warm but not too hot, avoiding the hurricane season. November and March are great months to go.
Portuguese man-of-war, jellyfish-type looking organisms, were present in the water. Beware, they sting! If stung, ask a lifeguard for vinegar, or bring some in your beach bag.
We took WestJet from Edmonton to Toronto, then transferred and flew into West Palm Beach. To get to the East Coast, airlines fly into Miami, Fort Lauderdale, and West Palm Beach. If possible, book a car from home over the Internet to save some money and time.


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Officials: Generator use led to city man's carbon monoxide death
Crews still trying to figure out why Keene Avenue victim was using device
City fire officials want to know why a northeast Baltimore man who was found dead inside his house was using a generator, which they determined led to his death.
Fire officials said the man's wife and children found him unconscious in the basement of their home along the 3600 block of Keene Avenue on Monday evening. Officials said the man, who hasn't been identified, hooked up a generator due to intermittent power outages in his neighborhood.
However, Baltimore Gas and Electric officials said they have no record of an outage on Keene Avenue on Monday.
Fire crews said they took carbon monoxide detectors into the house and got a reading of 1,300 parts per million in the basement where the man was found, which is a lethal dose of the gas.
"Anything 100 (ppm) and above, we make them evacuate. Sustained levels between 150-200 parts per million bring on flu-like symptoms, nausea, vomiting and dizziness, and then sustained levels at that 150-200 parts per million bring on unconsciousness and eventually death," explained Assistant Fire Chief Mark Wagner.
He said he hopes the man's death will remind homeowners that generators can only be used safely outside and that carbon monoxide poisoning can come on so quickly with cold-like symptoms that are so subtle that many victims never realize they're suffering.
"Do not use generators in homes. Stoves and furnaces this time of year, make sure you check them because we want to prevent any life loss in the future," said Fire Chief Jeffrey Segal.
It's unclear how long the generator was running. Officials are still investigating.


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Marvel's newest mega-event kicks off as Ultron takes over New York City, Hellboy's origin is revealed, and the My Little Ponies face the most evil pony ever, all in this week's comic releases!
New Issues
Dark Horse:
• Hellboy continues his journey through the afterlife in the aptly named Hellboy in Hell #4, but Mike Mignola has one more insane revelation — and it has to do with Hellboy's origin.
• Buffy's Willow Wonderland #5 features Buffy's witch pal hunting for magic, but she'll have to face her most powerful foe first — herself.
• Other releases: 47 Ronin #3, Colder #5, Star Wars: Dark Times - Fire Carrier #2.
• The Rotworld saga finally concludes in Animal Man #18, but there are still consequences for Buffy Baker and his entire family.
• The anime-fied girls of DC's Ame-Comi statue line make their comic debut in Ame-Comi Girls #1, as the ladies team up to defeat Brainiac (who is also a lady).
• Batman takes on the Penguin in Detective Comics #18, but a new crime lord named Ignatius Ogilvy is already planning to take over Gotham's underworld.
• The First Lantern continues to warp reality in Green Lantern #18, but Hal Jordan and Sinestro are still trapped.
• Other releases: Batwing #18, Before Watchmen: Rorschach #4, Dial H #10, Earth 2 #10, Green Arrow #10, Phantom Stranger #6, Smallville Season 11 #11, Superman #17, Superman: Family Adventures #10, Swamp Thing #18.
• The Mane six have made it to the Changeling Kingdom in My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic #4, but now they're at the mercy of the rather merciless, shape-shifting pegacorn Queen Chrysalis.
• The Adventures of Augusta Wind #5 has Augusta return to Nowhere Island, but it's under attack by the Terrible Something. That's actually it's name, in case you thought I didn't know.
• The Benzheen mission is over, but Jinx returns with some shocking information in G.I. Joe: A Real American Hero #188
• Other releases: Jinnrise #3, Joe Palooka #4, True Blood #10.
• Lost Vegas #1 begins as one ex-slave tries to pull off the greatest heist in the universe.
• Mara reveals her superpowers in Mara #3, and faces a bew threat: discrimination.
• Phil Noto's deadly assassin takes a mission to kill the President in Trigger Girl 6 #1.
• Other releases: Bedlam #5, Epic Kill #9, Great Pacific #5, I Love Trouble #4, Savage Dragon #185, Sex #1, Witchblade #164, Youngblood #77.
• The massive 10-part epic Age of Ultron gets its inaugural issue, as the insane robot Ultron begins his war not just to kill humanity, but eradicate all life on earth. And he's already conquered NYC!
• The X-Men of the past have to deal with the Avengers of the present in All-New X-Men #8.
• A Plus X #5 features two amazing team-ups: Iron Man and Beast, and Iron First and… Doop?!
• The most dangerous hero in the Marvel universe gets created in Avengers #7.
Other Releases: Age of Apocalypse #13, Cable and X-Force #5, Daredevil: End of Days #6, Iron Man #7, Powers Bureau #2, Superior Spider-Man #5, Ultimate Comics Ultimates #22.
• The Adventures of Fionna and Cake #3, Dan the Unharmable #11, Fashion Beast #7, Planet of the Apes: Cateclysm #7, Stitched #12.
Trade Paperbacks and Hardcovers
Dark Horse:
• The Blood: The Last Vampire saga continues as Saya works at a shrine by day and hunt Chiropterans by night in Blood-C Vol. 1.
• Will Eisner recounts his memories of war in this moving hardcover of Last Day in Vietnam: A Memory.
• Other releases: Trigun: Multiple Bullets.
• Grant Morrison's weird, wild Joe the Barbarian collects the avdnetures of an 11-year-old boy in the epic fantasy world of his imagination.
• Jonah Hex and his sidekick Dr. Arkham take on anarchists in New Orleans and the Court of Owls in Gotham City in All Star Western Vol. 2: Lords and Owls.
• Other releases: Red Lanterns Vol. 2: Death of the Red Lanterns.
• Spies and ninjas clash when two covert teams finally learn of each other's existence in Danger Girl/G.I. Joe.
• The Doctor battles a shadow that steals time from anything it touches in Doctor Who Vol. 1: The Hypothetical Gentleman.
• The Rocketeer returns in the Cargo of Doom tale, in which cargo contains doom, not that the cargo itself is doomed. In case you were wondering.
• The hit horror comic Severed is collected, where a 12-year-old runaway manages to meet a fanged traveling salesman who eats children. Now that's just bad luck.
• The tiny, deadly star of Mark Millar's Kick-Ass returns in Kick-Ass 2: Prelude – Hit Girl, and this time, Kick-Ass is the sidekick.
• Spider-Man: Dying Wish collects the controversial storyline where Peter Parker has a bad day and the dying Doctor Octopus has a pretty darned good one.
Other releases: Avengers Infinity, Ultimate Comics Iron Man.
• Archer and Armstrong Vol. 1, Btooom Vol. 1, Crossed Vol. 5, Muse Deluxe, One Piece Vol. 66, Peanuts Vol. 2, Tank Girl: Everybody Loves Tank Girl.


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Part of a larger WIP
Part of a larger WIP
It's like Japan is in the room with me.
Hey there, Zach! Long time, no see!
Is that Lucy in the dress? O_O
yes, she's with liam, and it's my favourite pair!
oh yay! i like this very much
This looks really nice.
Hope to see the finished version soon. ^^
^ Heh. Lucy has already decided not to try to be with Liam. Good luck with that.
Hello Acapulco couple! Been a while. A long one. Things look well.
-Amaya emote implies nothing here. Just like ending friendly comments with it.
Doublet NEVER ceases to amaze me.
Holy midget-Daisy, Batman!
Is that huge one suppose to be Paulo?
Because GEEZUS he's massive 0_o
Haha no it's abbey
his emo flip in the front it pulled back into a short Pony tail. Looks really cool!
Dr. Klaus
No wait it is paulo.
Stupid me.
Ah need 2 Lern 2 reed tagz
Dr. Klaus
just because there's a LiamxLucy in this picture i love it!!! <3<3<3<3<3<3<3<3<3


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Mark Activites as 'Commute' from the Strava app
Most of my training is done with my Garmin device, but when I want to track my commute I usually use my iPhone. A "commute" checkbox in the app would be immensely useful.
Most of my training is done with my Garmin device, but when I want to track my commute I usually use my iPhone. A "commute" checkbox in the app would be immensely useful.
I use Android instead of iOS similarly, and would like to see such function on A ndroid too.
Actually, I would like a app setting that automatically marks a ride as commute if it's end-capped by my home and work zones.
I just want the "Commute" and "Stationary Trainer" options available when I'm saving a ride on my iPhone, in addition to the Privacy option. Would keep me from having to go back and edit EVERY SINGLE commute ride to mark the Commute check box.
+1 there should be a commute check box on the 'Save Activity' dialog.
I've filed this request as a feature request (#162588). I think it would be even better if I wouldn't have to mark each commute manually. My commute starts and ends at same end points each time, so I would rather be able to mark those endpoints (let's call them "Home" and "Work") in Strava and then let it recognize my commutes automatically. For example, it could offer that "commute" checkbox in Save Activity dialog, but it would be automatically checked if my ride started at Home and ended at Work.
Also, +1 for Stationary Trainer checkbox request. Do you have existing ticket number for that?
Good afternoon I wanted tranferir all my workouts are not many who are on my facebook for strava today
Same as the rest. I use a dedicated GPS on my MTB but when I go work I'd like to be able to indicate its "commute" in the mobile app and I can't.
Please! Let's do this. It's been a year since this suggestion came up.
Thanks for all the feedback on the commute tag for the Strava mobile app! This is certainly something we aim to do.
There is a related forum that some of you may be interested in commenting on: https://strava.zendesk.com/entries/27349234-What-does-the-commute-button-actually-do-
Right now, the "Commute" tag doesn't have many features associated with it, and we're collecting feedback about the types of things users would like to see with the commute tag. I think once we develop more features to use this tag, it will be imperative to add the tag to the mobile apps.
I would like the Strava app to allow for selecting "Commute" for an activity detail. I know that this doesn't really do anything now, but it seems like someday it might and I have been doing it all along so I may as well keep it up for when the big something happens based on the commute tag. I now have an extra step of accessing my activity through the Strava website to add this tag, which takes extra time, data, and screen taps... The activities I record are most frequently commutes, so this does mean most of the time I'm having to take extra steps to tag it as such.
I really like the notification that pops up and says that the activity is ready and goes directly to the activity review when clicked so I can edit the name or select the bike that I was on. If you added the checkbox then I don't have to go onto the website and edit every single commute to do this.
Almost 2 years and still no progress on adding a single button, yet it's something you claim you "aim to do". I get you have other priorities, but I just wish you'd just be a bit more honest with us and tell us the features we're requesting just aren't going to happen. Mark things as "won't fix" and at least we'll have realistic expectations about the feedback we give.
I was thinking about building a simple ad-free (donation-driven) web app, authenticated via Strava.com, where I will:
1. accept your reported home/work location by asking you to select an example
2. find all of your public and/or private activities where the starting and ending lat/long values are within some margin of error of the selected samples
3. display the activities that fit the commute criteria but are not marked as commute
4. offer a "Mark all as Commute" button so you can batch act on these
5. optionally, in the future, if it's okay with folks, I'd be happy to write an app that'll constantly listen for your uploads and mark rides as commute
This is all doable, but only worth investing my programming time if Strava never implements this, otherwise I'm going to waste some part of my life to make this happen.
Strava reports that they're revamping the activity record functions, and will include an option to keep the screen on while recording. I sure hope a Commute button is part of those planned improvements.
Not at this time @Patrick, but it's an ongoing discussion at Strava about how to incorporate and leverage features for commuting. Thanks for your comments!
Love it. It's an on-going discussion... for how many years now? We couldn't possibly just add a small commute button while we figure out what the hell we're doing, could we...
Even if you're going to totally abolish the commute tag later on, or change it to something totally orthogonal and amazing, would it be so bad to just put the little button there on the "submit" screen, and see how people use it in the mean-time?
Strava is one of the sponsors and main apps for syncing of National Bike Challenge: https://nationalbikechallenge.org/
The ride type (recreation or transportation) is set on Strava and cannot be changed on the NBC site. The absence of Commute tag on Strava app makes it very inconvenient when most of one's rides are transportation. It doesn't help that desktop version of Strava looks too tiny on mobile phones. I have to go to the desktop version after every ride and set the commute tag there (after lots of zooming and moving around, and I have a fairly large phone) so it would sync as Transportation on NBC.
The challenge starts officially really soon and enabling setting the Commute tag on the app would be extremely helpful.
I was one of many who lobbied the National Bike Challenge to get Strava included as an app that could be synched with the bike challenge. So I am super excited that I can use your awesome product this year for NBC!! It's important for the NBC to differentiate between commute miles (saving the earth and all) vs. training miles (health and wellness). Can Strava please please update all smart phone apps to allow users (either at the start or end of their ride) to press a button to indicate the ride is a commute? It's great you can go back and edit your ride on the strava web page- but realistically, most people won't bother taking this time. Adding this functionality to the smart phone apps is essential to get accurate local information on riders who commute ---- I've pitched using strava data to my local govt for bike infrastructure improvements, and the main reason against was that "only recreational riders" use the app. if you want municipalities to purchase/use your data to inform bike infrastructure development you need the commuters 1) using your app- which I think they do but we just don't know it, and 2) definitive data on "commuter rides". So why not kill two birds with one stone?
I completely agree with Keely. Why this can't be made part of the app is a complete mystery. Why does Strava treat commuters like second-class users?
Like this would be great.
Strava really needs to add all the record functionality of the web app to mobile - somehow. (Ie marking commute or stationary training). Right now I have to go in and change all my commutes to commute manually.
I would like to add a +1 for this option as well, but i'd like to see it extended to their API so that other apps that synchronize (Cyclometer, Wahoo, ... ) can obey and set this value as well.
Commute is such a half baked feature, a real damp squib. Partially implemented and half-hardheartedly at that. Nothing in the mobile app, a filter in the Training Log, can't set commute from upload.
I've given up logging my commuting mileage. Please Strava, finish this feature.
I don't want my followers being bored with my back and forwards, back and forwards every day. They don't want my commutes cluttering their feed either. Commutes, other than your own, should be excluded from the feed by default, but selectable in settings.
Please! Please! Please! put a commute check box option when you upload from an Android phone / iPhone.
Also as discussed please hide activities flagged as commutes from the news feed so followers are not seeing these mundane activities OR at least have an option on all devices to filter the newsfeed activities as to not show commutes if they prefer (this way people can still flag others bad/cheated 'commute' data if they like and also hide the commutes when scrolling regularly).
We want the km's to go towards our total but we don't want our friends scrolling through boring commuting notices.
Please add this feature even if it's temporary. It's roughly an hour of development and testing.
Even a toggle in the main settings would do the trick - or a sticky setting that can be changed on the per-ride basis and is remembered. that would rock!


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Attend the ACM Awards
Want to get glammed up and go to the ACM Awards?! Of course you do!!!
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Trip includes:
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*This is a multi-market contest. Winner must be 21 years old. Contest ends Jan. 28, 2018.


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Using our Natural Indian Sandstone Walling in Raj with the Tumbled Copings in the same colour, Chris Gill & his team have done a fantastic job transforming this back garden into a work of art.
Chris Gill Landscaping
May 2016
Landscaping , Natural Indian Stone , Walls
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Royals pleased with Dozier's first pro season
Prized prospect Starling to join 2013 first-round Draft pick at instructional league
KANSAS CITY -- Shortstop Hunter Dozier, the Royals' top pick in the 2013 First-Year Player Draft, is progressing quite nicely in his first professional season according to assistant general manager of scouting and player development J.J. Picollo.
Entering Thursday, Dozier, the Royals' No. 7 prospect, according to MLB.com, was batting .306 between Rookie level Idaho Falls and Class A Lexington. He was also leading the Pioneer League with 23 doubles. Idaho Falls clinched a playoff berth on Wednesday night, but when the season ends, Dozier will head to the advanced instructional league along with 24 other players.
"He's got a really advanced approach at the plate. He's got more walks than strikeouts which is a great indication of a mature player," Picollo said. "He doesn't try to do more than his abilities will allow. He's got power, but he's not up there trying to drive the ball over the fence all the time.
"He's not afraid to hit with two strikes which really puts him way ahead of the curve as far as a first-year player. On top of it all, he's a great teammate and he wants to win, and he plays the game hard. It's really been an encouraging summer and a first great summer for him."
Dozier will be joined by fellow 2013 Draft pick Kyle Bartsch, a left-handed reliever for Idaho Falls, who is 2-1 record with a 2.22 ERA through 20 games.
"He's had a great year. He's a bulldog. He's really tough," Picollo said. "He likes coming into close situations and seems to excel the tighter the situation, the better he pitches. He's doesn't have a big fastball, but he's got good secondary stuff. He's able to throw his breaking ball for a strike which is a big part of it coming out of the bullpen.
"More than anything, it's the competitiveness in him and the bulldog in him that is coming through and when a team's in a playoff stretch like they are now, you want guys like that on the mound."
Picollo said that at this point, it's not as much about the instruction for players like Dozier and Bartsch, but the experience of getting to meet the coaches and staff and a first view of the complex in Surprise, Ariz.
Outfielder Bubba Starling, the Royals' third-ranked prospect and No. 5 overall pick in the 2011 Draft, will also be on the advanced instructional league roster. He played in 125 games -- batting .241 with 13 home runs for Lexington. After LASIK eye surgery in May, Picollo said the organization is happy with Starling's progress.
"His July and August have been really good," Picollo said. "One of the key stats we look at is quality plate appearances and in the first half through the end of June, he was just under 40 percent. In the last two months, he's fluctuated anywhere from 46 to 49 percent so he really finished well. I think more than anything, he took a deep breath and relaxed a little bit."
The youngest player on the roster, 18-year-old shortstop and No. 4 prospect Adalberto "Raul" Mondesi, has already made big moves through the ranks -- playing in 125 games for Lexington and batting .261. Mondesi is the son of the former Major Leaguer of the same name who played the majority of his career for the Dodgers.
"He's an extremely talented young player. Very advanced approach to the game. You can tell he's a guy that grew up around the ballpark," Picollo said. "He's one of those rare guys that can really slow the game up. Two strikes on him, there's no panic. Man on third base and he needs to hit a fly ball, he usually hits the fly ball."
Players will report for instructional league duty on Sept. 15. The advanced team will play a 19-game schedule that runs from Sept. 18 to Oct. 11. The regular instructional league, which features 49 more players, will play 22 games from Sept. 23 to Oct. 18.


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Michael Scott may not be the only one spending less time in "The Office."
Jenna Fischer (who plays paper saleswoman Pam Halpert on the hit NBC comedy) recently revealed her character might soon become more of a stay-at-home mom.
VIEW THE PHOTOS: 'Office' Darling Jenna Fischer
U.S. & World
The day's top national and international news.
"Pam gets a new job this year," Jenna said in an interview with The LA Times' Brand X blog. "Some of that revolves around her desire to be a little bit more available to her family and also have an easier job. So she manages to finagle a new position at work."
"Office" newlyweds Pam and Jim (played by John Krasinski) became the proud parents of a baby girl during season six, and Jenna said fans could expect to see more of baby Cece (played by a set of twins) in the upcoming season.
VIEW THE PHOTOS: Hollywood's Favorite Paper Pushers: Stars Of 'The Office'
"They got the cutest [babies] in town to play our baby," she said. "So far she's been in three of our first seven episodes — pretty much any time we get to see baby Cece is great."
Jenna can soon be seen on the big screen with Owen Wilson and Christina Applegate in the Farrelly brothers' comedy "Hall Pass," which is slated to hit theaters in February.
Catch the season premiere of "The Office" on September 23 at 9 on NBC.
VIEW THE PHOTOS: Emmys 2010: Hottest Red Carpet Couples
Copyright 2010 by NBC Universal, Inc. All rights reserved.
This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.
Related Content from AccessHollywood.com:
VIEW THE PHOTOS: The Wild & Wacky Steve Carell
PLAY IT NOW: Dish Of Salt: John Krasinski & Jenna Fischer Spill Details On Pam's 'Office' Pregnancy At 2009 Emmys
PLAY IT NOW: Kate Flannery - I'm 'So Sad' Steve Carell Is Leaving 'The Office'
More from Access: [ Jenna Fischer The Office John Krasinski ]


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CONWAY, Ark. — The court clerk for one Arkansas county says she will not issue marriage licenses to same-sex couples when the court opens Monday.
The office of Faulkner County Clerk Melinda Reynolds released a statement Sunday evening to local media saying it will not be issuing licenses to same-sex couples.
Circuit Judge Christopher Piazza struck down Arkansas' ban on same-sex marriage in a decision released Friday. He did not stay his ruling pending appeals, meaning marriage licenses can be issued to same-sex couples.
Fifteen licenses were issued to same-sex couples in Carroll County on Saturday.
Arkansas Attorney General Dustin McDaniel announced he will appeal the ruling to the State Supreme Court.
The statement from Faulkner County says the State Supreme Court must strike down a state law, not a circuit judge.
This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.


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I recorded the events inside the truck, and our beatings beforehand, not to highlight an exception but rather to cast light on a rule, the rule of brutal and unaccountable violence at the heart of Mubarak's security apparatus.
Today hundreds of Egyptians remain in custody after being arrested during this week's unrest; thousands more of their countrymen have remained behind bars for far longer, their locations unknown, their basic legal rights suspended by Egypt's perpetual 'Emergency Law'. An account of my experiences last night may offer a very limited and shallow taster of what these prisoners of one of the Middle East's oldest dictatorships live through every day.
In the streets around Abdel Muni Riyad square, it was immediately clear that the atmosphere had changed. Earlier there had been an almost carnival-like vibe in nearby Tahrir square, which demonstrators succeeded in occupying for most of the day; now at 1am the air was thick with tear gas and thousands of people could be seen running out of Tahrir towards me. Several hundred regrouped and rallied in Al Galaa, a main road that leads up towards Cairo station; spotting an abandoned police truck, a few dozen protesters immediately set about attacking the vehicle, eventually tipping it over and setting it ablaze. Through the smoke, lines of riot police could be seen charging towards us from the south.
Along with nearby protesters I fled back down the street before stopping at what appeared to be a safe distance. A few ordinarily dressed young men were running in my direction, and I assumed they were demonstrators also escaping the oncoming security troops. Two came towards me and suddenly threw out punches, sending me to the ground. I was then hauled back up by the scruff of the neck and dragged towards the advancing police lines.
My captors were burly and wore leather jackets – up close I could see they were 'amin dowla, plain-clothes officers from Egypt's notorious state security service. All attempts I made to tell them in Arabic and English that I was an international journalist were met with more punches and slaps; around me I could make out other isolated protestors also being pulled along, receiving the same brutal treatment and choking from the tear gas. We were all being hustled towards a security office on the edge of the square, only two streets away from my apartment. As I approached the doorway of the building other plain clothes security officers milling around took flying kicks and punches at me, pushing me to the floor on several occasions only to drag me back up and hit me again. I spotted a high-ranking uniformed officer, and shouted at him that I was a British journalist. He responded by walking over and punching me twice. "Fuck you and fuck Britain," he yelled in Arabic.
One by one the captured protesters and I were thrown through the doorway, where a gauntlet of officers with sticks and clubs was awaiting us. We queued up to run through the blows and into a dank, narrow corridor where we were pushed up against the wall. Our mobiles and wallets were removed. Officers stalked up and down barking at us to keep staring at the wall and not look back, whilst the sounds of more protesters being shoved inside could be heard behind us. Terrified of incurring more beatings, most of my fellow detainees – almost exclusively young men in their twenties and thirties, some still clutching dishevelled Egyptian flags from the protest – remained completely silent, though some muttered Quranic verses under their breath and others were shaking with sobs.
After what seemed like an age we were ordered to sit down, though there was barely any space in the little strip-lit hallway to do so. Eventually a senior officer began dragging people to their feet, sending them back out though the gauntlet one by one and into the night, where we were immediately jumped on by more police officers – this time with riot shields – and shepherded into a waiting green truck belonging to Egypt's central security forces. The steps up to it were small and rickety, whilst the entranceway to the rear body of the truck – pressed into use as a portable metal prison – was barely wide enough to accommodate a single person at a time. A policeman smashed my head against the doorframe as I entered; inside dozens of protesters were already crammed in and crouching in the darkness. Some had heard the officers count us as we boarded; our number stood at 44, all packed into a space barely any bigger than the back of a Transit van. A heavy metal door swung shut and locked behind us.
Inside, conditions were horrendous. As the truck began to move, brief flashes of orange streetlight streamed through the thick metal grates on each side; with no windows, it was our only source of illumination. With each glimmer, bruised and bloodied faces were revealed; we were sandwiched in so tightly that the temperature quickly soared, and a number of people fainted. Snatched fragments of conversation began drifting through the truck, as the inmates exchanged anecdotes.
"The police attacked us to get us out of the square; they didn't care who you were, they just attacked everybody," explained the man next to me breathlessly, who turned out to be a lawyer named Ahmed Mamdouh. "They took everybody's wallet and cell phones and they hit our heads and hurt some people. There are some people bleeding, and we don't know where they're taking us. I want to send a message to my wife; I'm not afraid but she will be so scared, this is my first protest and she told me not to come here today."
Despite the demeaning violence meted out to all those in the truck, the protesters held together with remarkable strength and solidarity; those who collapsed were quickly helped to their feet, messages of support were whispered and then yelled from one end of our metallic jail to another, and when it emerged that a couple of people had managed to hide their mobiles from the police the phones were quickly passed around so that as many as possible could call their loved ones. "As I was being dragged in a police general said to me: 'Do you think you can change the world? You can't! Do you think you are a hero? You are not'," confided Mamdouh. "What you see here – this brutality and torture – this is why we were protesting today," added another voice close by in the gloom.
Denied anything but scattergun glimpses of the outside world through the grates, speculation was rife about where we were heading. The truck veered wildly round corners, sending us all flying to one side, and regularly came to an emergency stop, throwing everyone forwards. "They treat us like we're not Egyptians, like we are their enemy, just because we are fighting for jobs," said Mamdouh through gritted teeth. I asked him what it felt like to be considered an enemy by your own government. "I feel like they are my enemies too," he replied.
At several points the truck roared to a stop and the single door would clank open, revealing armed policemen on the other side. They called out the name of one of the protesters, 'Nour' – the son of Ayman Nour, a prominent political dissident who challenged Hosni Mubarak for the presidency in 2005 and was promptly thrown in jail for his troubles. Nour became a cause celebre amongst international politicians and pressure groups; since his release from prison Egypt's security forces have tried to avoid attacking him or his family directly, conscious of the negative publicity that would inevitably follow.
His son, a respected political activist in his own right, had been caught in the police sweep and was in the back of the truck with us – now the policemen were demanding he come forward, as they had orders for his release. "No, I'm staying," said Nour simply, over and over again and to thunderous applause from the rest of the inmates. I made my way through the throng and asked him why he wasn't taking up the chance to get out. "Because either I leave with everyone else or I stay with everyone else; it would be cowardice to do anything else," he responded. "That's just the way I was raised."
After several meandering circles which seemed to take us out further and further into the desert fringes of the city, the truck finally shuddered to a halt. We had been trapped inside for so long that the heat was unbearable; more people had fainted, and one man was now collapsed completely on the floor, struggling for breath. By the light of the few mobile phones that had made it into the truck, protesters tore his shirt open and tried to steady his breathing; one demonstrator had medical experience and warned that the man was entering a diabetic coma. A huge cry went up inside the truck as protesters began thumping the sides and bellowing through the grates: "Help, a man is dying." There was no response.
After some time a commotion could be heard outside; fighting appeared to be breaking out between police and others whom we couldn't make out. At one point the whole truck began to rock alarmingly from side to side whilst figures, hidden from view through the grates, began banging the metal exterior, sending huge metallic clangs echoing round our ears as we clung on for dear life. We could make out that a struggle was taking place over the opening of the door; none of the protesters had any idea what lay on the other side, but all resolved to charge at it whenever the door yawned open. Eventually it did so, to reveal a police officer who began to grab inmates and haul them out, beating them as they went. A cry went up and we surged forward, sending the policeman flying; the diabetic man was then carried out carefully by protesters before the rest of us spilled gleefully onto the streets.
Later it emerged that we had won our freedom through the efforts of Nour's parents, Ayman and his former wife Gamila Ismail, who had followed the truck at breakneck speed and fought with officers for our release. Shorn of money and phones and stranded several miles into the desert, the protesters began a long trudge back towards Cairo, hailing down cars on the way. Most said that they would be back on the streets again in the morning. "They beat the fear out of me," said Mohamed Abo Awad, a 21 year old. The diabetic patient was swiftly loaded into a vehicle and taken to hospital; I've been unable to find out his condition since.